Stories1 min(s) read
Published 16:38 05 Jan 2021 GMT
A gym owner has sparked widespread fury after she was filmed doing pull-ups on an elephant's tusks at a park in South Africa.
Emma Roberts has now defended her actions at Adventures with Elephants sanctuary in South Africa and said that she does "not agree that sharing an amazing moment with this animal is cruel in any way".
Footage of the incident was posted to Twitter by journalist Yashir Ali. Alongside links to the gym owner's social media, he captioned the footage: "This is horrible...
"A South African woman named Emma Roberts went to an abusive, exploitative elephant park in SA called 'Adventures with Elephants' and was allowed to do pull-ups on an elephant's tusks."
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Ali followed this tweet up with another that read: "Then, when Emma Rogers [sic] was called out on this abusive and exploitative behavior towards this elephant, she didn't apologize or back down.
"She doubled down saying that anyone shaming her is uneducated."
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When footage of the pull-ups began to circulate, Roberts was widely slammed on social media and accused of animal cruelty.
One Twitter user wrote: "This is horrible and breaks my heart. Thanks for calling attention to this."
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A second added: "I live in Thailand right by several elephant rehabilitation camps...and what Emma Roberts did is vile, harmful to the elephant and she should be prosecuted... [sic]"
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A third fumed: "How did she not see the defeated look in its eyes? She knew and enjoyed the power. Unbelievable."
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As per the Metro, Roberts responded to the backlash in a statement on her now-deleted Instagram page which read: "For the sake of this amazing facility I have opted to remove my post.
"I do not agree that sharing an amazing moment with this animal is cruel in any way. However, there are many humans out there who only see the negative.
"Beating elephants is cruel, riding them is not ideal, keeping them in horrible environments and killing them for their ivory is cruel.
"Providing them with a home in their natural environment and educating people about how intelligent and wonderful they are is not cruelty."
The gym owner continued: "Unfortunately only a small percentage of the world is enlightened enough to see this.
"Those of you who have sent me wonderful messages, thank you.
"Those of you who have made this amazing experience for me feel like something I should be ashamed of… Shame on you."
Roberts' Instagram page is now currently "unavailable".
